Esoteric Ebb

Esoteric Ebb is an isometric, Disco-like role-playing game set in a bizarre, post-Arcanepunk fantasy world. You play The Cleric, an expert in esoteric events and a government agent, investigating a tea shop explosion in Norvik five days before the city’s first election. You wake in a morgue with half the river in your boots, ten thousand rotting apples, several corpses and a zombie, then explore the city without official backup to solve a mystery no one wants you to investigate.

Investigate Norvik

Explore the streets, towers and dark tunnels of a fantasy metropolis, taking on open-ended quests with stakes both low and high. The city is full of mythological creatures, from newspaper-selling corner-shop vendors to devils, drunk sphinxes and other fantastical characters. You can debate them, investigate the impossible, and navigate factions by playing them against each other. Your choices can shift alliances and return to affect you, as you shape the city’s fate as its savior, its downfall or an unlikely source of absolute power. The approaching election also raises the question of what you will vote for.

Choices and dice

Dialogue branches into a wide range of choices. Tense, tabletop-style dice rolls decide whether you succeed at actions such as wrestling dwarves, stealing or avoiding embarrassment. Failure can lead to more interesting outcomes, and risky dungeoneering is another part of your investigation. Clerics in Norvik are taught to use violence as a last resort; when combat is necessary, dice rolls help determine life or death, though problems can have bizarre solutions.

The Cleric’s mind and magic

Your Ability Stats each have their own conflicting viewpoint and can interrupt conversations, influencing how you approach quests. The Cleric can also use reality-shaping magic to control minds, detect secrets in underground tunnels or in the thoughts of enemies, and speak with the living or the dead. These powers create distinctive narrative choices and ways to handle encounters.

The questing tree

The Questing Tree combines your quest log, skill tree and mind map. Quest Branches can take root in your mind and change The Cleric’s playstyle through game-changing feats.